


Awkwardly Amorous Amy

by fifthhollow



Category: Faking It (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Obsessive Stalker Oliver, Serial Killer Amy Raudenfeld, Serial Killer Hank Raudenfeld
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-05-14 18:26:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5753665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fifthhollow/pseuds/fifthhollow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being a teenager? It's hard. Questioning your sexuality? It's confusing. Struggling with your desire to commit murder? That's hard and confusing. Doing all three at the same time? That just sucks, just ask Amy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 Grabbing a bottle of champagne from  _somewhere_ and chugging a fourth of it with her heart in pieces and her soul feeling raw.

 

A stray thought somewhere along the lines of _'I need to be a better sister... and daughter'_ slices it's way through the jumbled mess of _'Why did I have to confess to Karma?'_ , _'I ruined everything'_ , _'why would she want the terrible dragon when she can have Prince Charming?'_ , _'I'm so stupid'_ , and _'Fuck fuck fuck fuck'_ that clouded her mind. The thought is devoured and forgotten as she stares at a slice of cake on the table in front of her.

 

A man she doesn't recognize, sitting at the next table over, looses his grip on his knife and cuts himself slightly with a hiss and a muttered "Shit." The metallic tang hits her nostrils. A long-buried memory emerges and she bolts to the bathroom. Dry heaving into a toilet, images of a man smiling proudly, crimson splashes across pale skin, and a glowing light blue framed in darkness assault her mind. Momentarily, she longs to feel cold steel in the palm of her hand and sticky warmth dotting her knuckles.

 

Sitting on the curb in front of the reception hall, the bottle of champagne empty beside her curled up form and ice in her veins having nothing to do with the chilly night air, she sees _Him_ come stubbling out of the front doors. The look on his face almost, _almost_ matches some of the pain she feels so she listens to his slurred sentiments about hating lies and getting even.

 

If ever asked about how she got in the position she was in several minutes ago, half-naked underneath a _completely naked_ Liam Booker in her bed, Amy could only truthfully reference these blurred snatches of memory.

 

If ever asked about how she got into position she is in  _now_ , Amy could, scratch that, _would_ only go with the partial truth and say she blacked out after meeting up with Liam and doesn't remember anything after that before asking for a lawyer. Amy doesn't like lying, but when asked about _this_ situation as opposed to _that_ one it can't be helped, that's just the difference between drunk revenge sex with your best friend's lover and choking your classmate to death, right?

 

* * *

 

The darkness recedes back to the edges of her vision and the panicked and fearful face of Liam Booker fills the space it left behind as he struggles beneath her. Slowly, almost hesitantly, she moves back slightly and removes her forearm from where it was pressed tightly against his neck, effectively restricting his breathing.

"What happened? What did you do?" The questions leave her mouth in a rushed whisper before she can stop them.

Coughing and gasping for breath the boy responds, indignation coloring his words, " _Me?_ What did _I_ do? What the fuck Amy! I-"

Amy clamped her hands over his mouth and hissed "Stop yelling. It's late. Are you trying to wake someone up?"

For some reason, much to Amy's dismay, this did not cause Liam to shut up and calm down but instead attempt to increase the volume of his voice so he would be heard and saved from his predicament.

Unfortunately for Liam, not only did Amy's hands keep his shouts-turned-muffled yelps from surpassing an average speaking voice but his throat had not fully recovered yet, resulting in a bout of unpleasant coughing to overtake him which _did_ cause him to shut up and calm down if only to appreciate the act of being able to _breathe._

Looking down at the panting boy trapped underneath her, Amy asked "Are you good now?"

At seeing the nod in affirmation, she continues, "Are you going to freak out again?"

A moment's hesitation before a shake of his head causes some tension to bleed from her shoulders, voice sounding more drained than it probably has any right to be but she has been having a  _long day_ to put it mildly, "Good. Now, will you just tell me what the hell happened?"

Liam's breath normalizing, he responded, "We were doing fine but then you decided to snap, flip me over, fuck up my arms, and treat my throat like bread dough."

Slowly getting up, choosing to ignore the way Liam was flinching periodically, she made her way to the window on the other side of the room.

' _Good, good, bad but good. Nothing too bad happened.'_

Staring resolutely outside she thinks, ' _Liam will get over this eventually, if anything this was an important life lesson... "_ _beware who you take home to fuck kids, you won't know whether they are a wolf in sheep's clothing or not until they take off their clothes and it's too late..."'_

Amy unlatches and opens the window, resolutely ignoring the way her hands are shaking.

She turns back to Liam, who has managed to wriggle up into a sitting position. "Get out."

"What?"

"Either you get out or I _make_ you get out." She sees him recoil but ignores it.

"But my arms-"

"Will be fine in about 20 minutes."

_I can't show him any weakness, not after all of this..._

"Can I stay in here until I can move them again?"

"No. Get. Out. Now. " Her voice doesn't betray how shaken she feels and Amy is thankful that not _everything_ has gone wrong today.

Taking a long look at the woman in front of him, Liam makes his decision and manages to stumble out the window and onto the lawn without sustaining any grievous injuries. Amy throws his clothes out unceremoniously behind him before collapsing on her bed.

Both the alcohol and adrenaline have left her system and now she is moments from falling apart. With trembling hands she grabs her phone, opens the contact list, and begins scrolling until she finds three names all right next to each other.

She stops for a moment and considers her options: judgement, acceptance, or wildcard?

Later she will admit that it was a moment of weakness, but right now she needs to talk to someone, and so clicks the little green phone sign next to the middle number and chooses acceptance. The phone rings twice before they pick up.

"Hey, I know you might by busy or something, but I just had an _accident_ and I really need to talk to someone right now."


	2. Chapter 2

Amy wakes up to a pounding at her door matched in strength by the throbbing in her head.

Her throat is dry and her mouth tastes like sandpaper so she doesn't hesitate before trying to burrow back into her covers. Trying being the optimum word because only then does she notice the flaky crimson splotches smeared across her hands...and shirt, a shirt that may or may not be hers.

_Fuck._

Suffice to say Amy was now more than awake.

"Amy! C'mon, open the door."

 _It's Karma._ Amy thought she’d never see the day where _Karma’s voice_ would grate on her nerves, but she also thought she’d never get drunk enough to have a hangover either.

“Just a minute!” she yells through the door, her throat constricting unpleasantly as she spoke. _I’ve got to get rid of the evidence,_ Amy thinks as she bolts into the bathroom to rid her person of the most damning remnants of her indiscretion.

Stripping off her shirt, and yes, now she can see that it is hers, an old one that she barely remembers belongs to her, but definitely hers. Amy begins scrubbing her hands furiously under the stream of scalding water.

 _Things might have gone to hell but at least ‘clothing theft’ can’t be added to my list of sins_.

Amy hears Karma enter her room as she dries her hands.

“Amy?”         

Of course, at that moment her brain decides to pull together enough pieces of the last twelve hours for Amy to come to the sudden and startling revelation that Karma is in her room, her room that probably stinks of Liam Booker’s shitty cologne, sitting on her bed, her bed with blood spattered sheets and one really incriminating knife under the covers. _Fuck._

 

* * *

 

Over the course of their friendship Karma has spent more time in Amy’s room than Amy has spent in Karma’s and she prefers it that way. Farrah may be disapproving and a little bit judgmental but at least she gave Amy her space most of the time, which was more than Karma could ask of her parents.

Despite the overwhelming amount of time Karma has spent there, she could count the amount of times she's been nervous about being in Amy's room, including this one, on one hand. So, here she stands outside Amy's bedroom door with leaden butterflies in her stomach and a speech on the tip of her tongue.

"Just a minute!" Amy's muffled voice makes it through the door and to Karma's ears followed quickly by the sound of clamoring feet.

_Yes, ok, that wasn't a 'Go away'. She's not mad at me. She's just... don't think about it. It'll be okay. We'll be okay. I just need to go in there. Just go in there and hug it out with my best **friend**. Because that's what we are, best **friends**. And best friends can deal with anything. We dealt with Amy's **accidents** , we can deal with this. _

With that, Karma opened the door and walked in, her prepared speech dying in her throat at finding the room empty. "Amy?"

Almost automatically Karma's mind began to whirl in a decidedly negative direction as she began to pace the length of the room. _The window's open... did she jump out the window just to avoid dealing with me?  'Just a minute Karma, I just need to crawl through the fucking window because I don't want to deal with you and your hurtful, lying face'. God I-_

 Karma's thought process was cut short by the sound of the bathroom door opening. She turned to face Amy, and promptly found her eyes drawn downward momentarily as she took in her friend's lack of clothing. _Why is she shirtless? Usually when she's home she wears a shirt without a bra, not that the 'only in her underwear' thing doesn't work for her because yeah, okay, wow. She is really attractive. How is she so attractive?_

Had she been less distracted maybe Karma would have noticed how Amy was avoiding her gaze and how she was glancing frantically between the bed, her open window, her closet, and her phone on the nightstand.

_I can think she's attractive without it meaning anything, right? Because we're friends and friends are-_

Drawing her eyes up to meet Amy's as best as she could. _Shit, I was staring. How long was a staring? I made her uncomfortable, now she won't even look me in the eye. Nice job, Ashcroft._

When Karma spoke it was far from the eloquent speech she practiced 12 times before coming there and more closely resembled apologetic word vomit, "Did you cry yourself to sleep last night? I did. I know, I'm the worst friend ever. You were struggling and I didn't even notice because I was so busy chasing after some stupid boy. Now, Liam doesn't even want anything to do with me anymore. Ugh. Here I am making it about me again, I'm the worst. How are you? Are you okay?"

 Had she been less focused on the noble pursuit of not putting her foot in her mouth, Karma might have noticed both that Amy was only half listening and that she had begun to slowly herd the two of them towards the door.

"Honestly, Karma it was a really long night and I have a bad hangover-"

Grabbing a shirt from the floor, she pushed it into Amy's hands, "So put this on and we can go get a greasy breakfast."

"That sounds good, but I think I need some space right now."

Only after Amy closes the door in her face does Karma's brain process that something was  _really off_ about Amy.

 

* * *

 

_Just act normal. Just act normal. You are a normal person going to wash your sheets for average everyday reasons._

Amy is really wishing she anticipated her Mom being in the living room when she came down.

"Now, you aren't going to have any problems being here alone?"

"I won't be alone mom, Lauren's here."

_Good, nice and snarky. We're doing okay._

"That makes me worry more, not less, sweetie. But seriously," the jovial smile drops from her mother's face as it shifts into an expression Amy knows well despite how long it's been since she last saw it, it's sharp and stern with eyes that try to pry the secrets from Amy's bones, "there aren't going to be any _incidents_ while we're gone, right?"

 _Poker face. Act normal. She can smell your sin._ Amy gulps, her throat dry for a reason having nothing to do with her beverage choices the previous day.

"Yeah, mom. The worst thing that'll happen is Shane trying to give Lauren a makeover."

Smile back in place, Farrah pats Amy's arm, "Good, that's what I like to hear." _That's why I said it._

Looking around the room to make sure that neither Bruce nor Lauren heard any of that, Amy notices the plane tickets on the side table. "Hey, mom, don't forget the plane tickets."


	3. Chapter 3

Of all the ways to get her stepsister involved in her slightly convoluted but entirely necessary blackmail scheme, forgetting to lock the garage door is probably the worst Lauren can imagine, so of course that is _exactly_ what happens.

_At least it wasn’t Farrah. Thank god for small blessings._

Lauren expects, and rightly so if you ask her, indignant yelling, most likely about the legality of the situation Amy had just walked into, coupled with a good amount of awkward flailing and a nice dose of sarcasm.

But, just like at the Homecoming rally, Amy decides that now is a good time to forget how to read her script and just sets her laundry basket down on the washing machine with a frown on her face before going to one of the cabinets behind Tommy and reaching for something inside.

"Out of all the people in this room, I really expected better from you, Lauren."

"What the hell is-"

The words died in Lauren's throat at the startling _whooosh_ of something heavy suddenly moving through the air.

_**CRACK** _

The sound of metal hitting wood echoed throughout the garage, filling the shocked silence as the occupants of the room, sans Amy, tried to comprehend what had just happened.

Lauren, to her credit, was the first to recover.

"What the fuck!?"

_An ax. A god damn ax. Amy just buried a fucking ax into the shoulder of Tommy's chair._

"You didn't gag him properly, like I said, I really expected better from you."

"Why would you- wait, never mind. My gagging skills are not the issue here. Shut up Shane, you know what I meant." She turns to glare at the boy momentarily before continuing, "The issue here is what gives you the right to cleave his head in two?"

Amy just shrugs and walks back over to the washing machine and begins to casually load her sheets as she speaks, "I'm guessing the same thing that gave you three the right to kidnap him.”

_Okay, so no one here can claim a moral high ground._

 “Anyways, he's fine. I just needed him to shut up, people screaming through improperly tied gags _really_ gets on my nerves, especially when I have a hangover."

_She's being way too calm about this. Amy just swung an ax at someone's head because his cries for help were annoying her, and now she’s doing her laundry like it’s any other day… what happened to the girl who was crying into her cake last night?_

The taller blonde closes the machine with a poignant _bang_ and looks over her shoulder, right at Tommy. "And now he's going to be as quiet as his neanderthal brain can manage, _right_?"

The panicked and desperate way Tommy's eyes are jumping from the ax head inches from his face to Amy as he nods rapidly makes Lauren almost, _almost,_ consider letting him go. But she won't, she knows she won't, she only really considered it for the briefest of seconds.

“Unless you guys are trying to get something _out_ of him, then he should probably speak up, well, after you take the gag off of him.”

“See, this is why I love Scary Amy!” Shane practically yelled before walking over to clasp Amy in a half hug that was more him draping his larger frame over Amy than anything else.

“Scary Amy?” _Sure, sometimes Amy is as disgusting as a horror movie, but other than that whole ax thing I’d hardly consider her to be ‘Scary’. But maybe that’s the problem…what does Shane know that I don’t?_

“Yeah, duh, _obviously_. Amy has a total badass side but it only comes out when she’s not puppydogging behind _Karma_ ,” he says her name like it has personally insulted him, and Lauren can’t help but appreciate his choice of inflection. “You’re acting like that is the first time you’ve seen it.”

_That’s because it is._

“Wait, you _knew_ that Amy does stuff like that, and you didn’t do anything to stop her?” _And Booker breaks his silence. Some people really should just stand there and look pretty._

“Don’t get your boxers in a twist, I’ve only had the honor of meeting her two or three times. If you’re _so_ concerned, next time something happens I’ll call you so you can step in the way of the swinging ax and save the day, happy? I think the real question here is why _you_ know about Scary Amy-”

Breaking away from Shane’s hold Amy moved closer to the center of the room, “No, the real question is what you guys are doing with Lauren’s boyfriend-“

“Ex-boyfriend.”

“-strapped to a chair against his will and dressed in fetish gear.”

“Isn’t it obvious? Blackmail,” Shane chimes in, “Lauren has some sort of really juicy secret involving prescription pills.” He’s looking at her with the fakest of puppy pouts and Lauren barely controls the need to punch him. “The type where we need to do _all this_ to keep it hushed up and she won’t even tell me what it is.”

_Maybe Amy had the right idea of just going with an axe to the skull._

“That makes her the smartest person in this room.”

_What?_

“Excuse me, Miss Raudenfield, I don’t think I heard you correctly?”

“Come off it Shane, the whole Karmy mess happened because you _perceived_ a secret and wouldn’t let it go until everyone knew what you _thought_ was the truth. I can only imagine what will happen if you get your hands on an _actual_ secret,” the way Amy’s eyes flit toward the washing machine as she ends her statement sends a spark of curiosity as to what _exactly_ Amy means through Lauren.

Shane and Amy lock eyes and Lauren watches as the indignation in his eyes melts into something softer and almost apologetic before he opens his mouth to respond.

“See! This is why we shouldn’t hide things, it just makes everything worse. You’re only as sick as your secrets!”

If anyone ever mentioned the way Lauren flinched at those words, at the implication that the secret that she’s kept close to her heart for most of her life somehow made her _less,_ somehow made her _flawed,_ somehow made her _wrong,_ she’d deny it until the day she died, but damn it to hell and back if the words didn’t _burn._


	4. Chapter 4

Karma is an exception to almost every rule and fact about Amy.

Amy likes to sleep, unless she’s interacting with Karma in some way, then it becomes another unfortunate daily chore.

Amy really likes to eat, but she’ll neglect a meal or two if it means spending just a little more time with her best friend.

Amy actually actively despises most television, but she’ll sit with Karma and watch hour upon hour of self-labeled ‘monstrosities’ like The Real Housewives of Atlanta.

Amy is impulsive, she’ll often do things in the heat of the moment that could very well ruin her life, but, with a few notable exceptions, being around Karma makes her the voice of reason, shooting down insane plans and advocating for the use of common sense.

Amy can and will turn into Scary Amy with the slightest of provocation, but with Karma nearby, her tolerance for almost everything becomes remarkable.

Amy, for as long as she can remember, has been hyper-aware of her surroundings, unless she’s near Karma. Then, her radar-like awareness turns into something barely wider than tunnel vision, focused almost exclusively on the shorter girl.

Unfortunately for Liam, Karma wasn’t in the garage with them. Fortunately for him, Amy was against committing murder in front of spectators.

 

* * *

 

Lauren’s pained flinch gets caught in the periphery of her awareness and sticks itself on repeat. Surprisingly, Amy finds herself worried about the smaller girl. Unsurprisingly, Amy finds herself getting angry that someone she’s worried about got hurt.

So, of course, with murder off the table, Amy’s first course of action is to punch Liam in the throat.

Her second course of action is to grab the scarf wrapped around his neck to pull the boy down to her eye level, the action revealing a hint of bruising from her actions the night before, fear keeping Liam paralyzed where he stood.

“’You’re only as sick as your secrets’? Are you really that stupid and naïve? That may be true for someone as lucky as you,” Amy’s grip tightens, she sees Liam flinch but something hot and rancid is curling through her veins and she really doesn’t care about his sensibilities at this point, “but keeping my secrets from the world is the _only thing keeping me alive_. People don’t- most people don’t, keep secrets for shits and giggles. People don’t do things like _this_ ,” Amy gestures emphatically at the situation they were both standing in, “for something that wouldn’t burn the world around them if it got out. Some things- sometimes, the truth gets out and worse things happen than a couple people getting hurt feelings. Shane’s fun idea of outing me to the whole school to ‘help us out of the dark’ could have ended very differently if my mother, you know the one that owns _five guns_ , was just a little more right-wing. We may live in Austin, but this is still Texas.”

From the corner of her eye, Amy sees Shane go a little pale and curl in on himself just the slightest bit, she sees but her mind is elsewhere. Even though her gaze is set on Liam her focus is split between controlling herself and making sure Lauren is okay. Seeing that the smaller blonde has recovered to some extent, some part of Amy realizes that they should stop this and move on with the blackmail.

“If you can scream your secrets to the world and only feel relief flood your chest afterwards, good for you, but I, like most people, don’t have that luxury. Not everyone is as lucky as you.”

Having finally managed to perform some semblance of gathering his bearings, Liam grabs the wrist of the hand Amy is using to bring him down to her eye level and bites out, his voice dripping with indignation, “Lucky? You think I'm lucky?  After what happened last night-"

 Liam was cut off in the midst of what would surely be a wondrous diatribe by his own yelp of pain.

Amy had used her free hand to grab his wrist and twist it painfully, forcing him to let go of her.

"If you want to talk about last night, fine, let's talk," Amy's voice is cold and firm, Scary Amy has been out for a while now and any inclination to shut her back in left with Amy's mother, "but not here."

With that declaration and barely a glance at Shane and Lauren, Amy uses her hold on Liam's scarf to pull him out of the garage and up to her room.

 

* * *

 

A full minute of silence follows Amy basically dragging Liam out the door, which is only broken by Shane awkwardly clearing his throat. 

"Just get on with it."

"Get on with what?"

"Just say whatever ridiculous comment is  _undoubtedly_  burning at the tip of your tongue. C'mon, out with it. The sooner you say it, the sooner I can be utterly unamused and annoyed, the sooner we can get on with the blackmail, the sooner you can go back to trying to get into Paolo's pants. So, come on, say your piece and let's move on," Lauren doesn't even bother looking at Shane while she speaks, simply turning her gaze from the garage door to focus it on the washing machine rumbling away quietly on the side of the room.

The sigh Shane releases is loud and exasperated and really melodramatic, at least in Lauren's humble opinion.

"I know you have no reason to expect anything better from me, but  _wow_ is it a kick to hear. I  _was_ going to say," Shane continues his voice losing it's usual jovial edge and becoming softer, "that the first time I met Scary Amy she slashed a news van's tires with a screwdriver she pulled out of her bra, and I'm not the biggest fan of Liam right now and you're not the biggest fan of him in general but maybe we shouldn't leave them alone together? After everything that happened last night?"

Lauren is about to give a response somewhere along the lines of 'Liam is a big boy, he has like 70 pounds and a whole foot on Amy, he'll be fine and there's a big difference between vandalism and cold-blooded murder' when the light in the corner of the garage flickers on catching her attention.

The light that her dad keeps saying he is going to fix.

The light that somehow accidentally got linked up to some of the motion sensor ones in the back of the house.

The light that only comes on when someone is standing near or under Amy's window after sundown.

 

* * *

 

Lauren, followed closely by Shane, bursts through Amy's door with a declaration of "There's someone lurking in the yard right below your window," to find Amy and Liam standing clear across the room from each other.

As far as Lauren can tell, Liam, although maybe a little paler now, is no worse for wear than he was several minutes ago. Shane's fears seem to be relatively unfounded and Lauren can't help but feel a small amount of relief and, oddly, vindication.

_Amy has some issues, that I, for some reason, have never noticed, but she's not that bad. She's not going to hurt anyone...right? Trying to axe Tommy was a one-time-hung-over-heartbroken-walked-into-a-blackmail-scheme-when-all-I-wanted-to-do-was-wash-my-sheets thing. Right? Right._

Lauren would spend some time questioning why she's trying so hard to justify Amy's actions if she weren't currently preoccupied with keeping her secret safe and wondering who is lurking around their house at night.

Amy moves to look out her window, "They're just kind of walk around a little. The light turned off, I can't see who it is."

_Just what we need, a drunk stranger in the yard._

"Should I go unlock my gun?" At the three incredulous looks she received, Lauren felt the need to elaborate, "We live in Texas, people."

The stranger turns to face the window.

"It's Karma."

_Of course. This better be good._

The sound of Karma singing drifts through the window,

"I wrote this really nice song

To see if I can make things right

I know you've been avoiding me

But I just want to end this fight,"

_At least she knows how to sing_

" 'Cause you're the salt to my pepper

You're the moon to my sun

We're like Batman and Robin when we're out having fun

And we're gonna be together till we're old and gray

So all I ask of you is please don't pull away

Please don't pull away

Please don't pull awa -"

Karma cuts herself when all four of them somehow end up crowded around Amy's window, clearly surprised that Amy wasn't alone.

_She probably expected Amy to be sobbing into her pillow or something._

_Maybe she would be... if she hadn't walked into a sex dungeon blackmail scheme._

Of course, that is the moment Tommy chooses to go running as fast as he can, which, given that he is tied to a chair, is commendably fast, through the yard in a bid to escape through the garden gate, startling Karma and causing panic to surge through Lauren's veins.

_Shit, shit, shit...What are we going to do? This was a terrible idea. My life is over. I'm never going to become the second female president with a sex scandal on my record._

Only when Amy begins yelling, "Calm down! It's not what you think! Let me explain! I just need to take him back to the garage then I'll tell you everything, ok?" does Lauren realize that Amy has slipped out of the window and onto a small sloped portion of the roof and that someone new has entered the yard via the garden gate and is now standing in front of the fetish gear clad, tied to a chair, Tommy.

The yard light flicked on long enough to see that the person standing in Tommy's way was someone Lauren did not recognize at the least. The only thing keeping Tommy from going to the police and taking a massive dump on all their lives is a complete stranger.

The urge to hurl rises up in Lauren's gut.

"Help me get him back into the garage. Take the legs, I've got the upper body," Amy says, her voice clear and firm as she jumps to the ground.

Karma is apparently as stunned as one would have expected her to be and is just standing there, mouth hanging slightly open.

_I get that this whole situation is a mess but-_

Lauren watches as the stranger takes both of their hands and gives Tommy a firm shove to the chest, causing him to topple backwards with a yelp, so that he was resting horizontally on the chair.

The stranger then proceeds to reach down and grab two of the chair's legs as Amy grabs the back, one hand probably covering where she had embedded an ax earlier.

_Oh. She wasn't talking to Karma._

The two of them begin carrying Tommy, still panicked and thrashing, back towards the garage.


	5. Chapter 5

The second the door clicked closed, Karma whirled around to face Amy, mouth set and arms crossed, "Explain, _now._ "

"Blackmail. Tommy knows a secret Lauren doesn't want out," Amy says far too nonchalantly for Karma's taste.

"And what? You're just... helping out?"

"Yeah, actually, _we_  are," Amy says gesturing to the other occupants of the room, "well, except for Liam. He's just been standing there yelling about secrets."

Karma narrows her eyes in a vein attempt to somehow gain a clearer view of Amy's thoughts and intentions, "So, what, you're just going to take pictures of Tommy in fetish gear and then let him go?"

"That's the plan, at least as far as I can tell," Amy says shrugging halfheartedly, "Are you going to help us or..."

Karma's mind rushes to fill in the rest of Amy's question.

_Or leave?_

_Or hide up in my room while we finish up?_

_Or finish seranading me, because that's exactly what you were doing, in front of our entire social circle?_

_Or call the police?_

Karma recoils at that last line of thinking.

_Amy doesn't think I'd call the police on her._

_She couldn't._

_She knows I'd never betray her trust like that, right?_

_Of course she knows that..._

_Besides the time to call the police passed years ago._

"Let's get this over with."

"Good, can-"

"Now that Ashcroft's all caught up can _somebody_ please tell me who this guy is?" Lauren cuts Amy off with a flick of her wrist towards the stranger, impatience and anxiety tinging her words. 

In all the hubbub involved in Tommy's botched escape attempt and interogating Amy about her part in it, Karma had honestly forgotten about the new face in the room.

Karma turns and looks at the stranger, taking in his curly brown hair, hipster glasses, tan skin, slouched shoulders, and lukewarm smile. His eyes were focused on Amy. Something about the way he was looking at her caused an uncomfortable feeling to settle in Karma's stomach. 

"Everyone, this is Oliver. I don't know why he's here but-"

"Wait, this is Paper Crane Oliver? The one with the..." Shane speaks up suddenly, making a bizarre hand gesture that looks like he might be trying to pull something out of his half closed fist.

_Paper Crane Oliver? What the hell is Shane doing with his hands? How long has Amy known this guy? Why did she talk to Shane about him and not me? Shit, did she mention him to me? She probably did... Fuck_

"You... talked about me?" Oliver's voice is soft and surprised, which is surprising in and of itself.

_Maybe she didn't mention him to me. I'm not sure if that makes things better or worse._

"Why wouldn't I? Just because you like to hide from people doesn't mean our friendship is a secret."

"Yeah, of course, it's just easy to forget sometimes..."

 "We should really get on with the blackmail before someone  _else_ shows up. Lauren, do you want to take the pictures or should I?" Amy picked up the camera and held it out to Lauren.

"Lauren, I'm not I'm not gonna say anything!"

_Who forgot to gag the kidnapped guy?_

"Yeah, not if I rip out your tongue!" Lauren retorts quickly.

"Why would I tell anyone my girlfriend's a dude?"

_Wait, what?_

"Ex-girlfriend," Lauren bites out just before Amy's fist connects with Tommy's face.

 

* * *

 

Amy grabs Tommy's face and forcefully shoves the gag into his mouth, "What part of 'keep your mouth shut' is hard to understand?"

"For the record, I'm not a guy...I'm intersex. The pills were hormone replacements."

Lauren waits, breath bated and nerves a taunt string on the edge of snapping.

She waits for someone to say something. 

She waits for the laughter, the jokes, the judgement.

"Oliver, move the dildos closer to him," Amy says as she raises the camera and takes a few shots of Tommy.

"You should arrange them by size, that seeems more deviant," Shane chimes in.

"Where did you get so many sex toys?" Karma asks as she moves to help Oliver, the hesitant glance she sneaks in Lauren's direction is nowhere near as inconspicuous as she thinks it is.

It's still better than the pitying and watchful look Liam's giving her.

"My mom sells them out of the back of her car."

It reminds her of her father.

How his eyes turn glassy whenever he sees her medication or takes her in for a checkup.

When he's reminded that his little girl is not  _normal._

The need to run, to  _escape,_ is still thrumming through Lauren's veins when Amy breaks her train of thought.

"How many of these should we take?"

Lauren looks into Amy's eyes, searching. For what, specifically? She wouldn't be able to tell anyone.

But she doesn't find it.

Instead, she finds the same eyes, though a little more tired, that looked into hers weeks ago, while having a heart to heart and cleaning Croquenbouch out of their hair.

The same eyes that looked into hers last night.

_"Tommy's an asshole."_

_"Well, Karma's a bitch."_  

In the corner of her eye, Lauren sees the beginning of a bruise forming on Tommy's face where Amy punched him.

It hits Lauren like an eighteen wheeler:  _Amy doesn't care._

_Amy doesn't care that she's intersex._

"About twenty is good," she manages to choke out.

Amy just nods and goes back to taking pictures.

Lauren chances a look at Shane, almost afraid of what she'd find.

There is only one way to describe the expression on Shane's face and that is _Sweety, it's okay_ _, I understand._

Some part of Lauren knows that on some level he  _does._

She doesn't know what to do with that knowledge. 

"Should we take off his pants... er... underwear?" Oliver's voice draws the room's attention first to Oliver himself, then to Tommy's barely covered crotch.

"That would be a good idea," Amy says like she's actually considering stripping Tommy in front of four other people, Oliver puffs up and beams.

"Except  _nobody_ wants to see Little Tommy."

The way Oliver visibly deflates is almost funny enough to coerce a chuckle out of Lauren.

His eyes haven't left Amy unless completely necessary the entire time he's been in the garage.

_Could he be any more obvious?_

_Does Amy know?_  

Three people, one complete stranger, one only a little better, and one slightly better than that, heard her secret.

_And they don't care._

It's freeing and heartening in the most unexpected of ways.

"It's done, catch."

Lauren barely manages not to drop the small SD card Amy threw to her.

There is a lot Lauren wants to say at this moment.

Hundreds, if not thousands of words...

Of threat.

Of question.

Of gratitude.

Struggled to escape Lauren's throat.

She spoke none of them and simply said, "Finally, get rid of him." 

And then bolted off to her room.


	6. Chapter 6

“Just dropped Tommy off,” Shane says nonchalantly as he sits on the edge of Lauren’s bed, “Now am I forgiven?”

“Do I have a choice? You can still text the entire school my secret.”

“One, I’m going to take that as a yes. Two, I told you, no more outing people, I’m not going to tell anyone, Lauren. None of us will and not just because Amy would probably hurt us if we did.”

“You say that now, but someday you'll want to humiliate me.”

“And I will, but not about this, because I don't think there's anything humiliating about what you told us.”

Shane takes a deep breath before continuing.

“But clearly, you do. You gotta work on that if you want to be happy.”

“What, are we friends now? “

“Oh, dear God, _no,_ ” Shane sounds perfectly offended by the idea as he chuckles.

“Thank God.”

“Tender moment over.”

“You're welcome.”

“Bye.”

Lauren watches her bedroom door swing closed with her heart several pounds lighter than it had been when she opened that same door  this very morning.

 

* * *

 

  _ **Several days later...  
**_

 

“I was wondering if you wanted to hang out with me and Karma this weekend?” Amy said leaning against the doorway to Lauren’s room.

“Why? We hate each other,” Lauren responds readily.

“No, we don’t. I think we just got off on the wrong foot.”

“Just because you weren’t a total shithead about my… co-situation doesn’t mean we’re best friends now.”

Lauren mentally kicks herself for almost saying _condition_. _Condition_ reminds her of every doctor she’s had to go to, how they’d looked at her like she was a case study and not a human being. _Condition_ makes it sound like she’s sick. Lauren _refuses_ to think that way about herself.

“Look, I’m not saying that we should hold hands and sing kumbaya, but, you’re not as terrible to be around as I used to think, hopefully you feel the same way about me. I just think that, maybe if we give it an honest shot we can build up enough tolerance to each other to tacitly give a general shit about one another in some approximation of real siblings.”

“Tacitly? Approximation? Did you dust off a dictionary just to have this conversation?”

“Hey, just because I’m not a pageant queen like you and mom, doesn’t mean I can’t be eloquent as fuck when I want to be.”

The sudden edge of defensiveness in Amy’s voice helps ground Lauren in some bizarre way, making it both clear that her offer had been genuine and that their relationship was still strained in some ways.

Letting out a small breath, Amy continues speaking with a more conciliatory tone, "Anyway, if you feel like putting up with me and Karma while eating ourselves to an early grave and watching shitty movies, feel free to join us."

Amy half turns like she's not sure if she should wait for a response.

"With a pitch like that, how can I possibly refuse... luckily for you my plans got canceled."

Watching Amy walk away with a small smile on her face, Lauren can't help but think about the night of the blackmail attempt...

 

* * *

 

Lauren's hand rested softly on the doorknob as she internally debated whether or not she should open the door and talk to Amy.

On one hand, Amy had revealed not hours ago to have more sides to her than Lauren had thought and that prompted some discussion with someone with a brain and an ounce of tact.

On the other hand, Amy is probably emotionally raw right now, if the conversation she just overheard between her and Karma is anything to go by.

_'Waterboarding my heart' no wonder Amy was so... wrong earlier. At least Karma had enough sense not to sleep over after all that._

Lauren's thought process was halted when she a muffled swish followed by a muted thump.

_Why is she opening her window? It's like forty degrees out... Shit, is somebody in the yard again?  
_

 "What are you doing?" Amy asks, her voice just barely audible through the thick wood. The same can't be said for whoever she is speaking to, if not for the low murmur that follows Amy's statements, Lauren would think that Amy had been talking to herself.

"Well, did you at least make sure no one saw you?"

"You have until school starts on Monday," the words are firm and authoritative, so much so that yesterday Lauren wouldn't have believed they had come from her step sister, "to make absolutely certain that Lauren's secret is safe."

_Wait, what?_

There's a low thump like something hitting plated glass.

"If you can't or won't do what needs to be done to keep Lauren's secret, _Lauren's secret,_ then it's clear to me that our relationship is fated to end, _right now_."

Another thump, this time louder sounds clearly even through the door. Fleetingly, Lauren remembers that she's alone in the house with Amy.

"You need this more than I ever will, don't forget that."

Even across the room and through a thick wooden door Lauren can feel the stifling tension.

"Things have changed. No amount of hiding from the truth and wishful thinking will change what we both know. I see that now, and so it's time to stop denying it and start acting. Prove to me that you are worth my time, prove that it's worth it to have you around me. Lauren's secrets should be her own to divulge or hide as she sees fit. Assure me that that is a reality. By Monday. Understand?"

The response to this is either extremely short or nonexistent from what Lauren can hear.

"Good, now get down from there before someone sees you," Amy says before doing what sounds like firmly closing her window.

_Get down from... someone had snuck up to Amy's window, in the dark, without anyone noticing. We really need to get an alarm._

Lauren hears Amy release a deep sigh filled with relief like she had just taken her bra off after a long day and not threatened a shady nighttime visitor.

She backed away away from the door as slowly and quietly as she could, not entirely sure what she should think about what she just heard.

Amy trying to make sure that her secret remained _her_ secret in what seemed to be the best way she knew how just hammered home the conclusion that she was honestly on Lauren's side while the whole conversation made it clear that Scary Amy had a lot more going on than just scaring Liam Booker.

Giving herself a second to process, allowed Lauren to realize something: it was either Shane or Oliver at the window.

Unless someone ad been listening in from a remote location somehow, which seemed far too unlikely to be valid concern to Lauren, the only people who knew both that her secret existed and that it had been compromised were in the garage with her.

Karma had just left and Amy would never talk to her in anything resembling the manner Lauren had just witnessed.

Liam is incapable of keeping or respecting any secret that won't get him laid and Lauren highly doubts that's what was going on.

She was ready to rule out Shane too but he did manage to kidnap Tommy pretty easily and seemed to know a bit about Amy's darker actions.

It was clear now that there was more going on than teen drama and sexual shenanigans.

Closing the toilet lid and sitting down Lauren considers all of this as well as the most important question of all: should she get involved?

A loud knock at the door she was just standing at breaks Lauren from her line of thought.

"The lights been on for a while, are you done yet?"

Slight panic overtakes her, at the idea that maybe Amy had caught her eavesdropping.

 "C'mon I have to go pee."

_It's okay, she didn't know you were listening. I mean she would have said something, right?_

"Calm down, I'm on the toilet."

Standing, flushing, and making a show of pretending to wash her hands Lauren notices something peeking out of the mostly empty trash can, and against her sense of disgust picks it up. It's a t-shirt with a red smear across the front.

It takes the metallic smell hitting her nostrils for Lauren to realize what she's looking at: blood.

Amy knocks again.

Lauren quickly bundles the shirt under her arm and exits to her own room.


	7. Chapter 7

For the third time in so many days Lauren finds herself once again eavesdropping on her new stepsister, unsure of what to think. Some part of Lauren can't help but be intrigued by the mystery that is Amy.

By all accounts she had seemed to be the average antisocial slacker one can find at least a handful of at any highschool and at the forefront of one too many  Teen Movies, but recent events have shown that to be only a shallow view of Amy's true personality.

Some would say that Lauren, with her own carefully constructed surface personality should have anticipated this in others.

She would tell those people to shut the fuck up.

"-intersex thing humanized her-"

 _Wait, did Karma just say Amy invited me_ _**here**_ _out of **pity.**_

"I didn't invite Lauren because I feel sorry for her. I invited her because I want to get along with her and I think if we both try we can make this whole 'step-sisters' thing work. Having Bruce and Lauren around make my mom genuinely happy. She's smiling like she used to, Karma. She's smiling like how she'd smile before, before, she found out what type of person my dad was. Before she found out what type of person I could be... 

“Besides, the whole point of faking it was so that you could become more popular. Honestly, the only positive outcome to this whole thing has been that our social circles no longer consist solely of each other. You gotta admit, we got kinda creepily codependent as time went on.  Still I should've told you that I was inviting Lauren and Oliver, feel free to invite any of  _your_ new friends over," Amy says, rushing everything after Lauren's name out in a single breath and makes an attempt to escape to the kitchen.

"Wait," Amy freezes with one hand on the kitchen doorknob, "you invited Oliver?"

"Yeah, I think you two will get along great. Plus, he's bringing the pizza."

 

* * *

 

Karma wakes to find herself curled into Amy's side, in the dark, nestled in a tangled mess of covers on the Raudenfeld living room floor.

She feels warm and content until the context of the situation hits her like a battering ram and she scrambles away from Amy's warmth.

Only after recovering from the panic of finding herself in Amy's firm embrace does Karma realize that there is someone watching her. Turning to the left, Karma meets Oliver's wide eyes mere inches from her own.

He's crouched down into a hunched squat next to the armrest of the couch Lauren is sleeping on.

He furrows his eyebrows and jerks his sharply in the direction of the kitchen indicating he wants to talk in there.

-

-

After closing the door quietly behind himself, effectively separating the two of them from Amy and Lauren, Oliver whirls around to face her, his mouth set into a grim line, "Why you?"

"Why me what?"

"What does she see in you?" Karma feels like she was just punched in the gut.

"What makes you so special?" A knife slips between Karma's ribs, figuratively, of course.

"Why are  _you_ an acceptable waste of her time?" The knife twists harshly.

"I just don't understand. Help me understand."

"I- I- I don't know."

"You don't know? You don't know. Do you even realize how lucky you are to have Amy devoted to you? Do you even realize how lucky you are to have someone like Amy in your life? Do you even realize how amazing Amy is? You don't. I know you don't. Because if you did, you wouldn't break her heart. If you did, you would treat her like the blessing she is. If you did, I wouldn't want to ring your neck."

**Author's Note:**

> Currently unbetaed. If you actually like this thing, feel free to scream your thoughts and feelings at me either in the comment section or at my tumblr (fifthhollow.tumblr.com).


End file.
